At the University of Minnesota's "Voterpalooza" event earlier this month, the conversation with political candidates centered on, not surprisingly, student debt. With educational loans now totaling $1.1 trillion nationally and the average college graduate leaving university owing $32,500, this new credit crisis should be on the minds of all Minnesotans.

As a result of the substantial debt that frequently accompanies a college degree, student borrowers are postponing major life decisions, such as buying a home, to keep pace with their student loans. This pattern adversely impacts not only the financial futures of these graduates, but the health of our economy as a whole. Reforms must be made so that a diploma need not carry with it a lifetime of crushing debt.

Democrats are fond of short-term fixes, such as offering the option to refinance student loans, which U.S. Sen. Al Franken touts in his campaign ads and, as President Obama has advocated, outright debt forgiveness. But these Band-Aids are not only extraordinarily expensive, costing American taxpayers billions of dollars and adding to our already mountainous national debt, they would only help recent college graduates and do nothing to slow down the real driver of student debt — the ridiculous rise in the cost of college.

Since 1978, college tuition and fees have increased a whopping 1,120 percent. That is four times faster than inflation. Is it really so much more expensive to teach American college students now than it was then? Not really. The faculty-to-student ratio at U.S. colleges and universities has remained fairly constant over the past few decades. And institutions of higher learning are finding ways to cut instructional costs by keeping professor salaries stagnant and increasing the use of lower-cost part-time faculty and teaching assistants, who now account for half of their instructional staffs.

It is not the professoriate that is driving up costs for colleges; it is their ballooning administrative staffs, which have more than doubled in the last 25 years. According to the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, from 1987 through 2012, universities and colleges collectively have added over half a million administrators and professional employees — 87 per business day — to their bureaucracies.

As economist Richard Vedder, director for the Center for College Affordability and Productivity has noted, if the ratio of nonteaching university professionals to faculty in 2010 was as it were in 1976, there would be 381,456 fewer college administrators today.

The Wall Street Journal identified this problem right here at the University of Minnesota. An investigation found that from 2001 through 2012, the university added more than 1,000 administrators, growing their ranks by 37 percent — nearly twice as fast as the student body grew over the same period.

Of course, improving the affordability of college in the future would do nothing for those already saddled with too much student debt. Responsible loan refinancing options coupled with a commitment from colleges to trim tuition and cut costs may make for good policy. But truly the most effective way to assist recent graduates in paying down their student loans is to help them find good jobs. The left-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research recently noted that among recent graduates ages 22 to 27, almost half were underemployed last year — meaning they were either out of work entirely or doing jobs that generally don't require a postsecondary degree. Like so many problems we face today, a more robust economy is a key component to making student loan payments more affordable for college graduates.

A college degree can be a vital tool in achieving the American dream. Among millennials, the annual earnings for holders of such a diploma are $17,500 greater than those having graduated high school alone. The majority of young Americans who hail from families unable to afford their college bills should not have to face the decision of foregoing a postsecondary degree or being saddled with a lifetime of debt. But before turning to taxpayers yet once again, American colleges and universities themselves must take a hard look at the expensive and bloated administrative bureaucracy they have created, streamline their payrolls and cut costs to make tuition more affordable.

Andy Brehm, Minneapolis, is a corporate attorney.